This special track will take place during ICL 2013 in Kazan, Russia (25 – 27 September 2013) as a special programme item.

The Special Track CAF 2013 provides an interdisciplinary forum for international scientists and practitioners to discuss various aspects of e-assessment and learning analytics in learning settings and based on that feedback provision for students and teachers. This year CAF is organized in cooperation with the European funded project ALICE (Adaptive Learning via Intuitive/Interactive, Collaborative and Emotional System), http://www.aliceproject.eu.

The International Conference on Interactive Computer aided Learning (ICL) is an interdisciplinary conference which aims to focus on the exchange of relevant trends and research results as well as the presentation of practical experiences in interactive computer aided learning.

Background

Our modern life at the beginning of the 21st century is strongly influenced by effects such as rapidly changing and developing information, technology-enhanced communication and information access, and new forms of production and services in a globalized world. This situation requires individuals to adapt their skills and competencies. Consequently, educational objectives and societal expectations have changed significantly in recent years. Modern learning settings must consider learning community aspects as well as learner-centered, knowledge-centered and assessment-centered aspects.

By focusing on the assessment, this concept can be further distinguished in (1) summative assessment, performed at the end of a set of learning activities, and (2) formative assessment, which is intended to give continuous feedback to students and teachers. The latter mentioned formative assessment gives information about the current state of knowledge and/or the degree of knowledge acquisition within learning activities.

Assessment is an important component of modern teaching and learning processes in face-to-face courses as well as in e-learning environments; it provides valuable feedback to teachers and students which allows the revision and adaptation of teaching and learning activities. Furthermore, assessment activities and results can also be utilized for building and strengthening metacognitive skills. However, continuous and frequent assessment in learning processes may cause excessive efforts and costs. Therefore, computer-assisted assessment systems (CaAS) and computer-based assessment systems (CbAS) have become of increasing interest over the years. Assessment systems may support parts or the entire chain of the assessment lifecycle. This lifecycle includes authoring and management of assessment items, compilation of specific tests, performance of assessments, and compilation and management results. Additionally, emerging interest in the sharing and re-use of assessment items or compiled assessment tests and the exchangeability of assessment outcomes has resulted in standardization efforts, such as the IMS Question & Test Interoperability Specification (IMS QTI).

The special track will bring together international researchers as well as practitioners from different organisations who will have plenty of time for networking and real-world knowledge sharing.

CAF is interested in novel scientific research, findings from experiments and results from real-life applications. We invite submissions that deal with issues including, but not limited to:

Accepted papers will be published within the ICL conference proceedings. At least one author has to register within 2 weeks after the notification of acceptance to be included into the conference programme (11. June 2013). Authors fee is applicable only once per paper!

Some authors will be invited to submit extended versions of their paper for publication in the “European Journal of Open and Distance Learning” (EURODL) or the “International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning” (iJET).

Last year at the “e-portfolio in hei” conference in Vienna Wolf Hilzensauer and I hold a workshop about reflecting and assessing with e-portfolios. Afterwards we wrote an article about the topic which is now published the a book “The Potential of E-Portfolios in Higher Education” edited by Peter Baumgartner, Sabine Zauchner & Reinhard Bauer.

Our abstract:

Working with e-portfolio is not a matter of tools. The primary objective is to support learning and therefore requires a didactical foundation. Besides a short general introduction about the different purposes of the e-portfolio work in higher education we want to outline crucial aspects from a didactical perspective. In this contribution we will focus on the micro didactical level, especially the reflection and assessment of learning with e-portfolio. Additionally, we will describe challenges and consequences of these considerations for didactics on a macro level, for example for curricula and personnel development of the staff.

The term “e-portfolio“ gained in importance in the last few years. Focusing on crucial aspects like implementation models and case studies, international experiences, information ethics, didactical implications and interoperability of software systems, this book provides a critical overview of recent research and practical experience with regard to e-portfolios.
“Freeing” the paper based work of students and making it shareable and portable opens new possibilities for re-thinking whole curricula in higher education. E-portfolios are an innovative tool on campus that essentially has the potential to change higher education, possibly more than any other technological tool we got to know before.